Janna had a chance to take the controls of a DC-3 retracing the ALSIB route (Alaska Siberia – Lend Lease). This DC-3 was flown in the James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. Studying history is full of strange perks. Photo courtesy of the Yukon Transportation Museum.

Ancienne de l’University of Northern British Columbia Alumni

Janna Swales is the Executive Director of the Yukon Transportation Museum in Whitehorse, Yukon. She is also President of the Alaska Highway Heritage Society Yukon which is pursuing a Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada nomination for the Alaska Highway (with the Alaska Highway Community Society in BC) as a Cultural Corridor for 2017 (75th anniversary of the highway itself). She completed her BA in History at the University of Northern British Columbia in 2010 as part of a study program which also included Yukon College and Universitetet i Tromsø in Northern Norway.

How does Janna explain the significance of history? “Studying history is not just about getting a degree or a job,” she says. “Exploring the past is a personal voyage – one which helps us understand and connect with others and care about where we live. It takes us out of ourselves and allows our perspective to broaden. Yukon transportation history is revealing in the context of energy and transportation networks (particularly their shifts), immigration, social attitudes of how we see the world and how we each perceive the moral compass. The Yukon, in the context of transportation, is a place of connections, disruptions and massive change from time immemorial to today. Case in point: the gravel magnet is now Yukon’s main street. How do we recognize that in terms of the era of reconciliation with Yukon’s self-governing First Nations? How do we commemorate something which was so devastating to so many? What do we take from the benefits of connectedness the highway has brought? How do those reconcile? I think it takes a lot of time, thoughtfulness, working together and care to bring these polarized ends closer together in a way that builds our community and our history in a healthy way. This is what I hope to see at the Yukon Transportation Museum and what was first and foremost on the hearts and minds of everyone involved in developing the HSMBC nomination.”